By David BoscoDavid Bosco, a Foreign Policy contributing editor and assistant professor at American University's School of International Service. He is at work on a book about the International Criminal Court's first decade.

July 31, 2013

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has produced a gloomy new report on civilian casualties in the country. According to UNAMA’s website:

UNAMA documented 1,319 civilian deaths and 2,533 injuries in the first half of 2013, marking increases of 14 per cent in deaths and 28 per cent in injuries over the same period in 2012. This rise reverses the decline observed in 2012 and suggested a return to the trend of 2011 when high numbers of civilian deaths and injuries were documented.

The report attributes 74 per cent of all civil casualties to actions taken by Anti-Government Elements, a rise of 16 per cent over the same period last year 2012. Pro-Government forces were found responsible for nine percent of casualties, 12 per cent of the casualties were unattributed and resulted from ground engagements between Pro-Government Forces and Anti-Government Elements and the remaining five per cent were unattributed, resulting mostly from unexploded ordnance. The annual report prepared by UNAMA has been documenting the deaths and injuries of non-combatants since 2007.

The Taliban, for its part, rejected the report as little more than a tool of the American strategy. In addition to denouncing the coalition’s responsibility for innocent Afghan deaths, the group took issue with what it viewed as the United Nations’s use of the word civilian to describe government employees, like judicial workers.

“Calling them civilians is Unama’s own judgment,” the statement said, referring to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. “We don’t consider people civilians who are directly involved in our country’s occupation.”

0 Shares

17 Shares

About David Bosco

David Bosco, a Foreign Policy contributing editor and assistant professor at American University's School of International Service. He is at work on a book about the International Criminal Court's first decade.